La Stazione Centrale di Milano nel 1889

This canvas testifies to Angelo Morbelli's attention to contemporary subjects: a train enters puffing under the large iron and glass arch of Milan's station. This was the first Central Station in the city, designed by French engineer Louis-Jules Bouchot in 1864 and built in what is now Piazza della Repubblica, operating until 1931, when the current station was inaugurated. It was a cutting-edge building, especially due to its large modern iron and glass roof covering the tracks, in line with the grand stations built across Europe during those years.
Morbelli captures the modernity of life in the rapidly growing industrial city, where the station and transportation represent an aspect of modernity and a change in the lives of citizens. In the foreground, the thin black lines of the tracks create an elegant arabesque; some wait, while others prepare to depart, as blinding light filters through the glass and the smoke of the locomotives, highlighting the painter's research on light, aligned with international painting, especially French.
The subject was first presented, in an earlier version now in the collections of the State Railways, at the Brera exhibition in 1887, and then the following year in London.